> The fact that grabby citizens haven’t overrun Culture shows that these actions are blocked, either tacitly or overtly.

I mean, yeah, of course they're blocked. How would a "grabby citizen" take over the culture? Where would you start? If you find yourself on a planet - a very unpopular place to live in the Culture, by the way - and manage to build up a cult of personality or a cloning facility, and grow yourself 10 Billion footsoldiers... what do you do next? Nearly every ship in the Culture, especially one capable of transporting that many humans, is a person. You can't just rent a GSV - you'd have to convince one to take your army of clones elsewhere, and most Minds would find the idea laughable at best.

> Similarly, it’s strange that no one in Culture modifies themselves into a utility monster, or is interested in simulating sentient life.

It probably happens, but as someone has pointed out, Mr. Banks just didn't write about it. The Culture isn't that homogenous, either - the books explicitly talk about people who have committed crimes, and what happens in that case, including when the person committing the crime is a Mind.

> Look, I’m sorry to break it to you, but SC is a sham. The Minds are perfectly capable of creating avatars which would be more effective than any of the characters shown. I’ve never found the explanations offered convincing. SC is just an affectation or another tool of propaganda.

SC is a pressure valve, and as I recall, it's explicitly stated as such by a character in one of the novels.

> If anything, humans are treated closer to pets than independent agents. They are a weird affectation that is deliberately neutered from any real influence. They are lavished with treats and attention not extended to the rest of the universe.

This too is explicitly stated in a book as either a hypothesis by a human, or an outright statement by a Mind, I can't recall which. Ships have "crew", but what exactly do the human aboard a GSV do, exactly, that the Mind can't?

I feel like the author of this blog post hasn't read enough of these books.